Ozone is a reactive triatomic allotrope of oxygen that has applications in chemical production, disinfection, drinking water treatment, air purification, bleaching of fabrics and wood pulp, wastewater treatment, and food processing. Most of the ozone used in these applications is produced by corona discharge systems using air or high-purity oxygen as the feed gas. Ozone also may be produced from air or oxygen by the action of ultraviolet light or by cold plasma generators.
High purity oxygen is used as the ozone generator feed gas in most large industrial applications of ozone. The conversion of oxygen into ozone in commercial corona discharge generators is typically between 4 and 13%, and in certain applications the resulting oxygen-ozone mixture is provided as product directly to the downstream user without further treatment. Because the cost of the unreacted oxygen is a major part of the ozone system operating cost, it is desirable in many situations to recover the oxygen from the oxygen-ozone mixture for recycle to the ozone generator. This can be accomplished, for example, by pressure swing adsorption (PSA) in which ozone is selectively adsorbed from the ozone generator outlet stream, and the recovered ozone-depleted oxygen is recycled to the ozone generator. The adsorbed ozone is desorbed by a sweep gas such as air or nitrogen, and the mixture of ozone and sweep gas is provided as product to the downstream user.
Ozone-oxygen PSA systems often use zeolite adsorbents for the selective adsorption of ozone from oxygen. It is known that zeolite adsorbents can promote the decomposition of ozone, and the degree of ozone decomposition can adversely affect ozone cost and increase the operating cost of the ozone-consuming process. The degree of ozone decomposition can be reduced by using a zeolite that contains pre-adsorbed components such as water, carbon dioxide, argon, or sulfur hexafluoride as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,810,910. These components, which are non-reactive with ozone, are adsorbed on the adsorbent prior to ozone adsorption.
There is a need in the art of ozone generation for improved PSA processes to reduce ozone decomposition, thereby improving process economics and reducing the overall unit cost of generated ozone. This need is addressed by the embodiments of the invention described below and defined by the claims that follow.